


Stains

by AeonDelirium



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Incest, M/M, Mental Instability, Ramsay is his own warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-02
Updated: 2014-03-02
Packaged: 2018-01-14 08:35:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1259881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AeonDelirium/pseuds/AeonDelirium
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>No, this was not him. This was someone else. Some dirtier, someone miserable. Someone whose pain was greater than his own.</i>
</p><p>Ramsay learns how to cope with the trauma of past abuse. Reek does not profit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stains

**Author's Note:**

> Another one for a challenge among friends, using the prompts _stains_ , _pick your poison_ and _who is who?_.  
>  As always with the Boltons involved, proceed with caution. There are dark themes ahead.  
> Could be a sequel to [Rites of Passage](http://archiveofourown.org/works/914875), if you want to read it that way.

_You have to remember who you are._

He always left him with the same words, quiet words, spoken as if in passing as he straightened his clothes and walked out. A perfect picture of dignity and poise even after sweat and heat and heavy breathing.

Sometimes he left him on the bed, sometimes on the table, once in the bath. Usually on the cold stone floor, never looking back. Some days it hurt so bad he cried, some days he didn’t cry at all despite the pain. But the words were always the same.

 

There was no saying for sure _why_ he let it happen, only that it became harder to resist as time after wretched time came and passed. There was no denying Roose Bolton, and there was no other place in the world for him to go. No other man for him to be. One day, he thought, and his eyes opened reluctantly to the dim light of his chambers, one day it would all be his. One day he would rule. One day he would take what was his by right.

 

Ramsay pushed himself up on his elbows, then to his knees. His breeches became tangled around his ankles when he tried to stand, and his hand slipped from the table when he tried to reach for it. He wanted to scream when he fell to the floor, scraping his palms on stone and dry rushes. He wanted to break something. He wanted to kill something. He thrust his fist into the ground, again and again, until his knuckles were bleeding. He imagined the stone was alive, that the pain wasn’t his own.

_You have to remember who you are._

His name was _Snow. It rhymes with low._

Ramsay ground his teeth as he gathered a handful of rushes in his bleeding hand and crushed them, slowly, deliberately. The straws broke easily between his fingers. They smelled faintly of larkspur, whose blossoms Roose Bolton requested for the cleanliness of their scent. They were changed almost as often as he was leeched.

It was all lies, Ramsay knew. It was neither the faint scent nor the colour, reminiscent of bruises, but the poison that won them his father’s favour. It was the thrill of walking on poisonous flowers, treading on Death with a pair of soft leather boots. It was threat by implication. It was subtle. It was everything that Ramsay despised.

 

The worst of it was that they all knew. The servants knew, but they were disposable. It was another matter with the household, with the castellan. With Lady Bolton.

Of course there were no marks to speak of, no stains. Roose Bolton could not be seen leaving stains. He left it to Ramsay to clean himself, after. He knew he would, scrubbing away at his skin until it was red and raw, cursing between his teeth and under his breath and even out loud when it all became too much to bear. Helping Lord Roose’s bastard out of the tub after his bath became a duty to be used as punishment for lazy servants.

 

Ramsay breathed evenly as the last of the straws snapped inside his fist, poking his skin not quite hard enough to break it. Not even quite hard enough to hurt. There was only the pain inside him, the throbbing, like _he_ was still _there_ , and it only seemed to grow worse as he felt for it, making him shudder with humiliation.

 _No_ , he thought, as his jaw tightened, as his heart raced, as his eyes opened again, glittering with rage.

 

This wasn’t him. He wasn’t weak. He didn’t cry. He felt no pain. This was someone else. Someone broken. Someone _rotten._ Ramsay could almost smell his stench.

 

Something cracked inside him when he realised the smell was real. A part of him wanted to snatch up what larkspur blossoms he could find and shove them in his mouth, push them down his own throat until he either choked on them or died from the poison.

Instead, he pushed himself to his knees once more, did up his breeches with hands that almost didn’t tremble, and stood, inhaling deeply as the revolting stench flooded the room.

 

Reek never flinched when he beat him. He never complained. He cried sometimes, when he hit him hard enough, but he never begged. There were days when Ramsay thought he might kill him, kicking and biting and crushing him under his own weight. There were days when he needed him to scream to drown out the words, _You have to remember who you are_. There were days when his skin was a map that remembered invisible stains, and he painted them onto Reek in return. And neither of them ever lost a word about it. And Reek never forgot. He always remembered who he was.

Some nights they stole a bottle of wine afterwards, passing it back and forth until everything was a blur, the larkspur, the pain, the stains. Some nights they bought a whore. Some nights they killed her. It was those nights that Ramsay loved best, and those nights that let him sleep in peace, arm draped over Reek as they lay dazed in the aftermath of their crime. _It’s not me_ , he’d think, and smile as his eyes closed and he breathed deeply, calmed by the familiar smell. _It’s him_.

 

*

 

Ramsay would always remember the last time he heard the words.

 _You have to remember who you are._ Was there something wistful to his voice? It was hard to tell. The man’s cock showed more emotion than his face did. At least it lived. At least it _moved_. A part of Ramsay wondered if he leeched it, and he wanted to rip his own insides out as he caught himself pondering on the thought. He almost smiled then. Yes, something had cracked inside him, somewhere along the way.

_But you are a man now, and you will wear my name. Now it’s for you to remind yourself._

 

Domeric had been dead a week, and Ramsay would have loved nothing better than to dig up his rotting bones and piss on them, and leave them in Lord Bolton’s bed, give him a pleasant surprise when he slipped beneath the covers that night. _Remember you have only me now_. _Remember I’m the only one left_.

 

The feel of the flowers between his fingers had been familiar when he crumbled the blossoms into his brother’s mug. His dear, sweet brother, whose sleep had never been never disturbed, whose name had no rhymes. And now he was nothing but grime and stink, leaving stains in cold, indifferent earth. The thought was so sweet the words almost didn’t hurt, even as they echoed through his brain, even as he took two steps at a time on the spiral staircase, even as a jolt of pain shot up his leg where he had scraped it kneeling, even as he steadied himself against the wall, and his sleeve slid up, and he saw the bruises on his wrist.

The remaining flight of stairs went past him in a blur, heart racing in his chest.

 

No, this was not him. This was someone else. Some dirtier, someone miserable. Someone whose pain was greater than his own. He inhaled his smell as he leaned close to him, alerting him to his presence. His smile was wild and free and wide when the creature woke, this other him, this rag doll.

 

Reek begged sometimes, these days. He was different now. He cried when he beat him. He screamed when he cut him. Ramsay cherished those sounds. They only fanned the fire.

“You have to remember who you are,” he would say, and milk another whimper from him as he made another cut, and feel his heart convulse as he remembered his father’s lips, cold and bloodless as they formed the words. Cold and bloodless as they pressed against the back of his neck, as his hands pulled him closer, and his teeth …

Reek wailed when he bit him, a broken, pathetic sound for a broken, pathetic creature.

 

He had come to love the game, the sounds, the stains he left with the words ingrained in his brain even as his own flesh forgot. Reek shuddered as he touched him _there_.

“I’m yours, my lord,” he choked out, squirming away from his touch, anything to get away from his hands. How well he remembered the feeling, the disgust. Ramsay revelled in it as he pressed their bodies closer together.

 

He had come, sometimes, with _him there_ doing _that_ , and the thought was like a scream in his head when it gripped him, like a stain on his mind. He nearly split Reek apart when it coursed through his veins like poison, thunder in his ears.

“ _You have to remember who you are_ ,” he growled, but Reek’s reply was all incoherent shrieks and sighs, and perhaps that was best.

 

“You stink,” he said afterward, when he lay atop Reek’s fragile frame, collapsed and exhausted and satisfied. He traced a line along the stains on his shoulder, some of which were bruises, some of which were blood, some of which were too old and crusted to even tell.

“I’m sorry, my lord,” Reek replied, so crushed beneath his weight he could barely speak. “I’ll bathe if my lord wishes.”

“No you won’t.” Ramsay propped himself up on his elbow, and his fingers pressed into his skin until he was certain he had left another bruise, a red blossom on a field of greyish white. Reek tensed beneath him, but it was almost a gentle caress compared to what he had learned to expect.

“You’ll forget if you wash them off. You’ll forget what you are. You’re mine.”

 

Some days he thought he ought to thank Reek, for being the vessel that contained his pain, for being the cloth he used to wipe his dirty hands, for being a skin he could shed. The thought almost made him smile with how absurd it was. His name was _Bolton_ now, and he owed thanks to no one. Reek made a strangled sound when his hand slipped down between his legs, resting so comfortably in the empty space as though it belonged there.

“ _My Reek._ ”


End file.
